A Gentleman Lost
by Burnedtoasty
Summary: TF2k7: The crew stood ill at ease around the screaming captain, shuffling their feet and glancing at each other, at that ominous, dark gulch, too frightened to even speculate as to what horrors such an abyss housed.


**Disclaimer**: _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Hasbro, and the respective artists/writers/et cetera. No infringement intended_.  
**Fandom**: Transformers  
**Continuity**: TF2k7 (2007-movie-verse, pre-film)  
**Characters**: Archibald Witwicky, sailors  
**Summary**: The crew stood ill at ease around the screaming captain, shuffling their feet and glancing at each other, at that ominous, dark gulch, too frightened to even speculate as to what horrors such an abyss housed.  
**Warnings**: None  
**Author's Note**: Originally, it was intended to be long and meandering, but these were the only parts that really came to me when writing it. I tried to shoehorn some transitions in there, but it felt forced, awkward, and was, honestly, terrible. So a little bit broken, but that kind of works, considering. Criticism greatly encouraged. Really.

Edit: OH LAWD LOOK AT ALL THOSE TYPOS _ARGH_. My bad.

--

Archibald Witwicky had always been a strong man. A brave chap, possessed of urbane savvy and a mind for adventure. His hands not unused to their own share of toil, lined and cracked as any common laborer's to be found. He had been a captain that could be respected – even-tempered and fair, who dealt with even impartiality every squabble and quarrel that could arise, infinitely patient. A pleasant sort of fellow that could sit with them in the evenings, and drink the communal grog with nary a grimace.

Perhaps it was this unusual fusion of traits that granted him such amnesty from sailor's mutterings, and spared him uncharitable whispers exchanged on the long, cold watches. This strange synthesis that enabled him metamorphize, to transmute seamlessly into any role he was presented with. To bear his burdens with grace and sensibility, and face unflinching the most overwhelming odds.

Archibald Witwicky was a good man.

… The gibbering, broken thing they dragged up from that ice was not the same man.

The mutation went beyond the new physical handicap, beyond the milky white eyes that sightlessly roved; he was mad, his mind broken by some vast, terrible sight not meant for the gaze of man. The crew stood ill at ease around the screaming captain, shuffling their feet and glancing at each other, at that ominous, dark gulch, too frightened to even speculate as to what horrors such an abyss housed. The wind howled, shrieked through the rigging and around the chuckling clop of relentless axes, the sound like a lead ball rolled between chattering teeth.

The captain, himself, seemed to not note the cold, the way the snow had seeped in at his wrists and collar. He reached out to them with feeble, trembling hands, crying, "Oh, Lord, save me! The things I have seen! The things I have seen!" before arching like a thing possessed, lips curling back over gnashing teeth. His spittle flew up from his chapped lips, flecking his mouth with foam like a rapid dog.

They watched the captain's drool dribble pitifully into his beard; warm tear tracks slice pilgrim paths through the snow on his face. They watched his spittle-flecked lips flutter with strange words. They listened to the hissing moan that drove the dogs into fits, until the dumb beasts huddled down in the snow and howled.

"Seen the eyes of the Devil, he has," One soul murmured from the back, the utterance followed closely by the soft sound of a fist striking well-insulated flesh and admonitions to keep one's uncharitable thoughts to oneself. "What, just sayin' what we all be thinking. Ain't right. Ain't _natural_."

Nobody quite had the gumption to disagree.

"Bad luck," Relentless, the man muttered again, making the sign of the cross across his breast despite icy looks from his immediate fellows. His breath puffed up white and fluffy, the rhythm far too fast for a rational man's respiration. "Bad luck to bring madmen aboard. Mark me, it bodes no good for us." He raised his voice so all could hear over the sniggering wind-rattle and stutter of half-frozen axes. "Best leave the Devil what's his, if'n you know what I mean."

"He's still the captain, mister Brigsby," The first mate scolded sharply, working nerveless, cold fingers together, eyes fever-bright. "Likely took a strike to the head, that's all. Kindly keep any further rotted ideas to yourself."

Ostensibly humbled by the rebuke, Brigsby scuffled the snow at his feet, mumbling something that could be likened to an apology into his coat's neckline. "'Pologies, sir. Didn't mean no harm by it."

"What do we do with him?" A younger man asked, lifting his wide eyes to stare at their congregation. "Mister Lawrence, sir?"

The first mate squinted against the Artic glare, puffed warm air on his fingers to stave a chill that seemed deeper than bones. "Take him back aboard. Keep chopping. The doctor'll have a look at him."

Complying to the vague command for lack of a better plan, they hefted Archibald Witwicky aloft, and took him back to the ship with nary a word further exchanged. They left him in the dark of the hold – there being no point for wasting precious lamp oil – and went again to chop the ice, and ignored the demented shrieks that echoed so queerly into the perpetual white.

And through it all, the wind laughed on.

--

Lawrence was at a loss.

Despite the good doctor's best – if somewhat crude – efforts, Archibald Witwicky had not made the slightest recovery. Indeed, it was common opinion that he had worsened since their break from the ice; in the beginning, he had merely alternated between shrieking fits and halting mutters barely loud enough to be discerned over the creak of the ship's motion. It had been bearable, because it had been _understandable_; it was known that mad men would, well, _act_ mad.

But this. This was something else entirely.

Taking a quick, predatory breath, the de facto captain unlatched the heavy oak door, and pushed through into that strange abyss.

"Captain," he called, holding his lantern high enough to make a puddle of light about him. Seeing no immediate threat, he shuffled inside, feeling rather than seeing the two midshipmen watching over his shoulder, ready to intervene at a moment's notice. He crept forward. "Captain, sir. I brought you your things."

Something shifted in the dark.

"Lawrence. Lawrence. Have they come yet? I can see the fire." A pause, the creak of a body shifting on a stiff cot. Brightly, rationally, he asked, "Bring me my charcoal, will you?" his voice floating warm and even in the blackness.

"Of course, sir. I have it here," Lawrence squinted, holding up one hand to block his lantern light. He cleared his throat, reaching into his pocket to finger the desired items nervously. "I, uh, brought you some biscuit, sir, as well."

"Hn. Not necessary, now, Lawrence, much to do, much to understand, I've seen new ones," Archibald sighed calmly, his blackened hand emerging from the darkness. "Kind of you. Very kind."

"I'll just leave it here, then, sir?" Lawrence tried, fumbling for the captain's desk, keeping a wide berth from the cot. His fingers caught on the lip of the behemoth desk, felt about for the cold lantern, hanging useless on its chain. Careful, Lawrence lit the wick with his own, wishing it weren't so damned cold and so damned—

Light bloomed, filling in the dark places with just enough detail to be bearable.

"My implements, Lawrence, if you please. There's a good lad."

"Of course, sir. It's right here." Quietly, reverently, Lawrence pulled out the desired artifact, loathing himself to encourage this baffling and blasphemous behavior, but unable to deny him anything.

Archibald took it with an almost religious dread, reaching out for where his paper stack had been placed, right beside his cot to comfort him through his lonely hours. Lawrence stood by, impotent and lost, hard biscuits sitting ignored on the desk beside him as he watched his captain depict a language no God-fearing man had ever known.

Archibald traced the fantastic characters with his stained fingertips, ineffectual eyes roaming restlessly back and forth, unable to linger longer than a moment on any one place. Only the blackest charcoal would do; dark enough, striking enough against the crisp white paper for the man – surely blind, his eyes were milk white, he _must_ have been blind, it should have been impossible – to decipher the vaguest of outlines.

He often spoke of how could feel the soft granules against his fingertips, like a downy coating, and could only taste the burnt material in his mouth when he deigned to eat. About great works of beasts and angels, who had fire for eyes and breathed out smoke and ash and kept stars inside their breasts in place of hearts. Fantastic things – mad things, raving things, that he picked and etched upon the walls, covering every spare inch his questing fingers could find; his scrawling filled his cabin, eclipsing his meticulous handwritten accounts with crude renderings and prophetic visions of a world far off from their own.

He was a man possessed, brought through seizure-like episodes to some other realm beyond himself. He raved of terrible creatures, beings made of fire and metal, and distant worlds where wars had raged for millennia untold. Of architecture beyond human ken and things no creature of the Lord had a right to know.

Sometimes he came back to himself, became again the stiff-backed captain who had seen potential in a simple ship's boy; other times, however…

"Sir. Captain," Lawrence called, weakly, the light wavering and flickering as the ship rocked. "Your supper. Please, sir."

But Archibald Witwicky was gone from there, somewhere beyond himself, beyond the worn planks and dark rooms and hard, cold biscuits, where kind words and small gestures couldn't quite reach him.

The captain hummed mindlessly, scribbling furiously.

"Captain Witwicky."

"A good lad. No sacrifice, no victory. Always a good lad."

Lawrence leaned down, and blew the tiny, flickering flame out.

--

The captain's personal effects were largely too damaged or too confiscated to pack away for his kin. Lawrence sat on his heels in the emptied quarters, what few scraps of paper and clothing and intact property remaining spread out around him. He was certain none of it was worth much; most anything of any particular value had been taken alongside captain Witwicky, vanished somewhere out where all ruined things went.

Of course the family would want what was left. Even if it was just oddments and pieces.

Something glinted faintly from a rumpled coat, part of some wiry frame sticking out far enough to catch the sparse light.

Lawrence reached over, fishing out the offending item. The captain's glasses. He felt a moment of almost-panic, that such an important item could be so carelessly forgotten, before his rationality caught up with his idiotic lapse in memory. He coughed out a strained chuckle, spinning the meaningless token of things lost between his fingers, watching the play of light across the chipped glass. Rubbish, now, no use to anyone – too scratched to even pass on some other short-sighted chap. He awkwardly considered tossing it out with the rest of the refuse, rather than present such an intimate and significant item to the bewildered family.

He choked up a little bit, felt some twinge of pathetic sentimentality. No. They could settle on what they wanted to do with it on their own; far be it for him to decide such things. Thoughtfully, he wrapped it in his hanky, slipped into his pocket with a reassuring pat.

Briskly, he rose to his feet, scanning the stripped room a final time.

Feeling half a fool, he smiled wanly at the bare cot, murmuring, "Goodbye, sir," and turning before he could get all maudlin and silly, heading for the deck.

In his pocket, the glasses were a soft and reassuring weight. Rubbish, maybe, broken, but still worth enough to hold on to.

Besides, who knew what good a pair of glasses could turn out to be?


End file.
